Mass Effect: Interview after the Collectors
by OrderlyAnarchist
Summary: Khalisah al-Jilani.  She tries to make you look bad on galactic news every time she gives you an interview.  Now that the Collectors have been defeated, she's going to give one last interview.  This time, it's going to far.  Rated T for language


_If you've ever played Mass Effect, then you know Khalisah al-Jilani, the reporter who does her best to make humanities first spectre look like a complete idiot on galactic news. She was in ME1 and ME2, but the ME2 interview was rather short. I figured it only made sense that she would try and finish it after I beat the collectors, and I had a nasty feeling that if she did, the subject of my Shepard's relationship with a certain quarian, might come up. Here's a quick one shot I wrote up on how I felt the interview might go._

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><p>The C-Sec requisitions officer was staring intently at his computer, trying to sort the latest shipment of high-tech weaponry. It was the same routine every day. Add the newest model of the to the database, remove the old one, and wait for someone to walk in with some credits. If he was lucky he received a shipment of the latest spectre prototype weaponry. Those were stored in the very desk he occupied, and his gun-loving self couldn't help but admire them. <em>I wonder what it's like owning the best weapons in the galaxy. Not only do they get to use them, but they have control over how and when they use them. I wonder... <em>

He was still thinking about the spectre weapons when a pair of footsteps startled him out of his dreaming. He looks up to see a human and quarian standing in front of him. "Hello, can I help you with something?" he asks as he sizes up the would-be customers.

"Yes, you can," the human began. "My names Commander Shepard of the Normandy and the lovely woman beside me is Ta-" the officer cut him off.

"Wait, you're Commander Shepard?" he asked in alarm. "They said you were dead. There were rumors of you returning a while ago, but I never believed them."

"I was in a coma for two years." The man responded. "But I can assure you I'm the-" The requisitions officer cut him off again.

"Don't worry, you don't need to assure me of anything," the turian said. "How could I forget the man who sold me millions of credits worth of merchandise?"

"I thought you looked familiar. You've been selling guns down here for the entire two years I was gone?" Shepard asked him.

"Yeah, never could find anything else to do. Besides, I wouldn't get to look at that beautiful spectre gear the council gives you guys if I left."

"That actually brings me back to my reason for coming here. I just finished a mission, and I ne-"

"Commander Shepard!" A woman's voice shouted down the hallway. Shepard didn't need to turn around to figure out who was speaking to him. There was only person who could make anger him with just the sound of their voice, and that person was...

"Khalisah al-Jilani! I did a few interviews with you. Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Shepard looked to the quarian woman beside him, and said in a whisper "Tali, if I look like I'm about to punch her, I need you to restrain me. I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with her crap."

The quarian just giggled. "I'm sure if you can deal with a rouge spectre and the collectors you can handle a little interview."

"I guess... Ju-" he was interrupted again by the reporter standing in front of him.

"We never got to finish our interview before Shepard. I was wondering if you had time to answer a few more questions."

"Yeah, I guess. But I do have important business to attend to," he glanced back at the requisition officer's desk, "so lets keep this quick."

"Of course commander. Get ready, you're about to be on live TV!"

He heard the tell tale hum of the reporters camera drone activation, and knew that he was now on live television.

"Don't worry sir, I'll open up the spectre drawer now, so you and you're friend can look at it when you're finished," the requisition officer said from behind him.

_That's not what I'm worried about..._

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><p>"First question!" He heard Khalisah's voice and prepared to answer whatever stupid question she threw at him. "There have been reports that you recently fought a battle with an alien species from beyond the Omega 4 relay. The Collectors."<p>

Shepard fought to keep the surprise out of his voice as he answered. "That is true. I took a team of the galaxies best through the relay, and destroyed their base of operations."

"You took a team through the Omega 4 relay?" she asked him. "No ships ever gone through and come back again."

"That's because it leads to the galactic core. It took a special IFF transponder, designed specifically for the mission in order to get through and land in the safe zone on the other end."

"But where did the IFF come from?"

"I'm afraid I'm not allowed to answer that," he responded, knowing that any mention of the reapers would only make the interview harder.

"That's... unfortunate. Next Question! Rumor has it that the Collectors were very advanced, more advanced than any other race in the galaxy. Would it not have been better for galaxy as a whole to save the station, and use it for research purposes?"

"Unfortunately," Shepard began, now with more than a nagging suspicion at who the reporter's sources were, "there was no way to save the station. If there was, I can assure you I would have done what was best for the galaxy as a whole." _Which would've been to blow it up anyway_, he thought to himself.

"Do you have any other information about the Collectors you would like to share?"

"No, Khalisah, no I do not." Shepard turned away, expecting the interview to be over. _Well John, I think you handled that rather well. _He looked back at Tali, getting the same warm feeling he got every time he looked at her. She was talking to the requisitions officer about a shotgun he had on display. He'd have to make sure he bought that before they left. As he started back towards the requisition officer's desk, he was surprised to here the reporters voice again.

"Commander Shepard, I have one last question."

He looked at her, in a good mood now. "Shoot."

"I'm sure it's all false, but rumor has it, that you may be romantically involved with quarian of all things." As Khalisah finished her sentence, the room plunged into silence. The reporter continued, unfazed by the sudden quiet. "As I said before, it's obvious that they're all false, but do you have anything to say about them regardless?"

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><p>Rage filled Shepard's body as the reporter finished her question. He looked at Tali. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy: His crewmember, his friend, and his lover. He could hear her pain, despite the silence. They had been keeping their relationship low-key, out of the eye of the public. Tali had been worried about what people would think of him. Not her, him. Selfless to the end, that was Tali. That was his Tali. And now this bitch reporter had gone and hurt her. Insulted her, and told her she wasn't good enough for the man who loved her in front of the entire goddamn galaxy. He turned around to face the reporter, his eyes full of fury. "Yes Khalisah, I would like to say something about those rumors."<p>

"First off," he began, walking towards Tali. "Those rumors are completely true."

"But Commander Shepard, she's a-"

Standing next to his partner, he continued. "Secondly, she's not a thing; she's a quarian. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya. A proud member of the Migrant fleet."

"I still don't see how-"

He put his arm around the beautiful quarian standing next to him, as he continued his verbal assault against the reporter. "Thirdly, the person you're referring to as a thing is probably the one reason this galaxy is still here. If not for her, Saren would've taken over the citadel. If not for her the Collector's would still be at large, abducting colonies across the galaxy."

"I never said I doubted her skills," Khalisah began, frantically searching for a way to turn the tables on the enraged spectre in front of her, "but that still doesn't explain how-"

Shepard glared at the reporter, his eyes promising only pain. "Cut me off, one more time," he told her, his voice shutting the reporter back up. He turned to face the quarian he was holding on to, his eyes now showing only compassion. He looked her in the eyes, seeing through the opaque visor, and looking at the beautiful face he had seen before the trip to the Omega 4 relay. Without looking back at the reporter, he continued his speech. "Tali is the reason I'm still alive. When I can't go any farther, she pulls me through. When I lose all hope, she brings it back to me. If you can't understand what she means to me, then you're not worth my time."

Khalisah was desperate; she had launched this interview trying to get back at the man who had made her look bad on TV. Now she realized that she might have screwed over her career. Well, if she was going to lose her job, she might as well make one last desperate push to humiliate the man. "So what you're saying is that you'd rather love a suit than a real living being." The moment the words left her mouth, she realized the mistake she had made.

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><p>Fury was not a word Tali normally associated with John Shepard. He almost always managed to stay calm, even when dealing with the worst criminals in the galaxy. As a result, the scene in front of her was completely new to her. Shepard's body was covered in a thin blue veil, while the reporter was floating above the floor, held aloft by the biotic energy coursing through his veins. As he yelled at the floating reporter, his expression was nothing less than pure rage.<p>

"You come in here, waste my valuable time, and use information you gained from a terrorist organization to insult me on galactic television, and now you have the nerve to insult one of the only people left in this galaxy that I actually care about? The one person who's kept me going long enough to save this goddamn galaxy?" Shepard walked over to the requisition officer's desk, keeping the reporter in the air, and examined the drawer of weapons the turian had opened up earlier. He picked up a heavy pistol, and examined it. The laser sight would be perfect for what he had in mind. "Mind if I borrow this?" he asked the officer, who was still stunned at his outburst. Without waiting for an answer he activated the laser sight, and let the blue light rest on the reporters head.

"Wait, no I didn't mean- I didn't want to say-" She was stammering now. The reporter was obviously terrified.

"You meant exactly what you said!" Shepard shouted at her, still full of rage. "Don't tell me you didn't me-" he stopped, as he felt the familiar hand of the quarian behind him rest on his shoulder.

"Don't John," He heard Tali's familiar voice pleading him. "She's not worth it." She turned him around, and looked deeply into his eyes. "You're better than this. You're better than her." She watched as the fury left his eyes.

"You're right. Thanks Tali." He gave her a quick smile, before spinning to face the reporter again. "You're lucky she was here Jilani." He aimed the pistol away from the reporter, and pointed it at the floating camera drone. "This interview is over." As he finished the sentence, the camera drone exploded, a mass accelerator round finding it's way to the machines control mechanism. He released the biotic grip he had around the reporter, and let her fall the eight or so feet between her and the ground. As she ran out of the room, Shepard heard the turian requisition officer behind him laugh.

"So the great Commander Shepard, in love with a quarian."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Is there a problem with that?" he asked the Turian, his voice becoming hard again.

"Not at all!" The requisition officer said with a laugh. "If she's even a little bit of what you said she is, then I can't imagine a better girl." He walked up to Tali, holding the shotgun they had been talking about earlier. "Here," he said, handing the weapon to her. "Consider it my wedding gift."

"I- I can't accept this. This is worth hundreds of thousands of credits!"

"And watching Khalisah put in her place like that was worth millions. It's about time someone put that bitch in her place. Besides, if you don't take the shotgun, I'll just have to give you a sniper."

"I guess I can take it. As long as it doesn't get you in trouble."

"I'll be fine, something tells me that he," The turian pointed at Shepard, "is going to spend a lot of credits here anyway."

"You got that right," Shepard said with a laugh. "Now what's the best sniper you've got in stock?"

End

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><p><em>If you liked that, than you can use it or modify it for use in your own story. As long as I get a little credit, I'm fine with others using this. I just wrote if for fun anyway. And remember, I want to get better at writing, so every review I get that tells me what I could do better helps me out. Don't worry you won't hurt my feelings. All (constructive) criticism is good.<em>

_Now, because I love everyone who reads my work, you guys get to see the original, version of the interview that I wrote._

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><p><span>Original version:<span>

Reporter: Shepard, rumor's have it that you may be in a relationship with a quarian of all things. Now it's obvious that these rumors are false, but do you have anything to say about them regardless?

Shepard: Yes, I do. First off, those rumors are completely true.

Reporter: But she's a- (Shepard cuts her off)

Shepard: Secondly, she's not a thing; she's a quarian, a person. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, a proud member of the Migrant fleet.

Reporter: I still don't see how- (Shepard cuts her off again)

Shepard: Thirdly, the person you're referring to as a thing is one of the only reason this goddamn station is still standing. If it wasn't for her support, human colonies would still be disappearing, and the collectors would still be at large.

Reporter: This still doesn't explain-

Shepard, in a cold, intimidating voice: Cut me off... One more time. Tali'Zorah is the one thing that keeps me going. When I can't move on any farther, she pulls me through. When I lose all hope, she brings it back to me. If you can't see what that means to me, then you're not worth my time.

Reporter: So what you're saying is that you'd prefer to love a suit, instead of a normal human being?

Shepard: (Gives a cold glare) Is this camera transmitting live?

Reporter: Yes, why?

Shepard: (Pulls out phalanx pistol, and lets the laser sight rest on her forehead) You're lucky I don't consider you worth a shot. (Points pistol at camera) This interview is over. (Shoots camera)


End file.
